Combat Rating

Combat Rating is the main source of damage scaling in Relic Hunters Legend.

The goal of the system is to allow players of different levels to still play and have fun together, and to keep the core gameplay from falling apart at higher levels.

When under Normalized Power, Player characters and NPCs scale their damage relative to one another differently. Players have a cap on how effective they can be against NPCs. This cap is much higher when it favors NPCs, or when Normalized Power is not active.

Concepts
Characters have two types of Attack Rating and two types of Defense Rating.

Physical Attack Rate
Determines how much Physical damage the character is capable of inflicting. Applies to all Physical damage (Impact, Frag and Magnetic).

Elemental Attack Rate
Determines how much Elemental damage the character is capable of inflicting. Applies to all Elemental damage (Fire, Water and Nature).

Physical Defense Rate
Determines how much Physical damage the character can mitigate. Applies to all Physical Damage (Impact, Frag and Magnetic).

Elemental Defense Rate
Determines how much Elemental damage the character can mitigate. Applies to all Elemental damage (Fire, Water and Nature).

Damage Multiplier Calculations
The Combat Rating damage multiplier is calculated by comparing the Attack Rating and Defense Rating of the appropriate damage type (either Physical or Elemental).

The resulting damage depends on the difference between the Ratings, and whether the attacker or defender is under Normalized Power (capped) or not.

Value Interpolation
The actual damage multiplier is calculated by a linear interpolation between the Base Damage Multiplier and the Rate Diff, where the number of steps is equal to the absolute difference between the Base Rate Diff and the maximum/minimum Rate Diff possible.

Examples
1) If a Player with 50 physical attack hits an NPC with 18 physical defense, the rate is 2.7 in favor of the player. The player is capped, however, which means the maximum Rate Diff is 1.75. The attack has a x1.5 damage multiplier.

2) Let's look at the same situation in reverse: an NPC with 50 physical attack hits a player with 18 physical defense. All NPCs are always considered "Uncapped", which allow differences of up to 4.0. In this case, the Rate Diff is still 2.7. The attack has a x6.6 damage multiplier (ouch).

3) For a more balanced example, if a player with 32 attack hits a NPC with 25 defense, the Rate Diff is 1.28, which results in an attack with a x1.18 damage multiplier.

Critical Hits, Precision Damage, Vulnerabilities, Resistances
Combat Rating calculations are done before any other damage calculation is done.

Critical Hits, Precision Hits and Vulnerabilites (and maybe other future modifiers) are additive to each other.

The resulting damage of the Combat Rating calculation is then treated by the Damage System.

Enemy Combat Rating
Enemy Attack Rate (both Physical and Elemental) and Defense Rate are determined by the Enemy's Level.